


Left Behind

by The_Onyx_Moon



Series: Vega's Girl [1]
Category: Mass Effect (Comics), Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Paragon Lost
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 16:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19891009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Onyx_Moon/pseuds/The_Onyx_Moon
Summary: Charlie Shepard has never had a hard time facing her morality before.  But then, she’d never been in love before.





	Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in Act 1 of Mass Effect 3 - post bomb mission, pre Genophage cure. Inspired by **[this conversation](https://www.youtube.com/embed/K7NRNZ5ShXw?start=410)** between James and Shepard. There’s a minor reference to James’ backstory (as seen in Paragon Lost) but if you don’t want to watch the whole 1.5 hour anime, just watch **[this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAt847ICwI).**

James Vega knew who his hero was.

Knew Shepard was more than the Cerberus puppet The Council was making her out to be. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t thrilled when they gave him the assignment to watch over Commander Shepard after she had been ‘relieved of duty’. And she didn’t mind one bit either. He was an attractive man, after all.

Then the Reapers hit Earth and turned their world upside down.

All things considered, they hadn’t really been fighting together all that long.

He saluted her when he shouldn’t have, called her Commander even though the title had been stripped from her. He knew who she was and that she would never work with Cerberus if it weren’t for all the right reasons. He never lost respect for her, even when others did. Never questioned her like Ashley had. When Anderson impromptu reinstated her, he vowed to go where she went. After a mild temper tantrum at leaving Earth, that is. Hell, if it wasn’t for him Cerberus would’ve gotten away with the Prothean data back on Mars. It was reckless, sure, and Shepard tore him a new one for it after making sure Ashley was in one piece but she owed him. They all did.

But still, he hadn’t been part of her crew for long. Not like Garrus - who had been to literal hell and back with her, or Liara who took a chance on saving Shepard by giving her body to Cerberus after the collectors had blown her to bits. Even Wrex, though he was unable to fight in her squad at the moment due to too many political responsibilities, was at her side once more. No, they hadn’t been through nearly as much together. Lieutenant James Vega had just happened to be in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time to end up on the Normandy. 

Depends on which of them you asked.

But despite his initial reluctance to leave Earth, James has proven himself to be a valuable asset to the team, and honestly? Shepard couldn’t see this fight without him aboard.

He’s become a permanent fixture in her squad - always the first to volunteer when she heads down to the shuttle bay armory to suit up. Eager and willing as ever, with a smile so boyish it makes her heart flutter and she can’t help but wonder what would she do without him?

She’s seen too many good people die in this war to think about that, though. So she buries the thought of losing another good man - a friend - and buries it deep. That is until she’s forced to face her own mortality once again.

A bomb on Tuchanka, placed as insurance should the Krogan decide to rise up again. A strategic move that Shepard doesn’t agree with, but understands none the less. The mission is tough, Cerberus throwing everything they’ve got at her squad to keep them from disarming the bomb.

She grits her teeth at the first sight of yellow and white armor. Those bastards just couldn’t leave well enough alone. The Illusive Man just had to stick his grimy little nose in everyone else’s business.

James is the one to calm her down, large hand clamping down on her shoulder and shaking her gently. Big, brown eyes bat her way and she forgets she’s on a battlefield.

“C’ mon, Lola. Let’s give these bastards hell.”

And, oh, they do. Explosions rock the battlefield as she, Vega, and Garrus bob and weave behind cover, taking out Cerberus’s shields and snipers like the practiced unit they are. Cerberus blood paints Tuchanka’s soil and Shepard knows Wrex would be proud. She makes a mental note to tell him once they are back on board the Normandy.

After the smoke clears, Tarquin Victus’s voice crackles to life in their coms amidst static and error messages.

_TSS-C-Cerberus hacked-tsss-trigger-tsss-set to detonate!_

“Disarm it!” She screams into her earpiece, gunning down another Centurion with a well-timed headshot. Somewhere on the field, Garrus calls out a ‘good shot!’

_No time! Have to separate-tsss-trigger-tss-_

“Victus, no!” Her throat constricts, whether from nerves at watching the Turian climb a-top the massive fucking bomb or from Tuchanka’s less than friendly environment, she isn’t sure. Still, she covers him with biotic blasts and bullets alike until a blood-curdling screeching fills the air. She looks up just in time to see the trigger arms falling away from the bomb - with Victus dangling alongside them. “Lieutenant!”

 _Victory._ The click of the bomb arm freeing up. Shepard dives out of the way, not a moment too soon. _At any cost._

The ground shakes at the impact - Turian, and machinery alike falling into the planet’s core but leaving the bomb intact above it. 

She breathes a sigh of relief, nurses her side - most likely a bruised rib from when her shields fell. That Nemesis had timed her shot perfectly - even knocked Charlie on her ass. Thank god the bitch hadn’t been using shredder ammo, or Shep would be more than just bruised. Shepard’s squad was on retaliation in a second - Garrus returning the nemesis’s favor by blowing her head clean off while James rushed over to apply medi-gel to Shepard’s side. It took the sting away for a bit, the feeling of James’ large hand splayed on her flank only adding to the heat.

But now it was wearing off and Shepard needed to get to Chawkwas soon.

James’ face then had been the same as it is now - looking like he wanted to murder someone as he helped a hobbling Shepard to the shuttle as Krogan reinforcements showed up to secure the area. They weren’t happy about the bomb and if any of the Turians had survived, Shepard was sure another fight would’ve broken out right in front of her.

It’s quiet aboard the Kodiak. Garrus tucked into a corner as he thinks over what his people had done all those centuries ago. Joker radioed in for a status update, to make sure everyone was ok, but that was several minutes ago. Several tense minutes that leave Charlie Shepard to replay the death of the primarch’s son.

Shepard wasn’t looking forward to _that_ conversation.

“You can spend your whole life making up for your mistakes...” James’ voice interrupts her treacherous thoughts, his handsome, battle marked face appearing before you. He’s kneeling, hands on either side of her legs as those big brown eyes stare into her own. The depths swim with the same fear and uncertainty as her own. He sighs, rocking back until he’s no longer caging her to the seats. A sliver of red tinges his cheeks and he clears his throat. “At least the guy went down in a blaze of glory.”

She remembers back to the shuttle bay, the way she wanted to rip his fucking head off after the stunt he pulled on Mars. How flippantly he’d compared his life to the grand scheme of things. It reminded her of herself - how she was willing to do whatever it took to end the Reapers once and for all. It set her fucking teeth on edge and she’d lashed out, cutting him off mid-sentence to send him sprawling on his back successfully ending their sparring. She yelled - no, borderline roared - at him that they needed him alive.

The sight of him staring up at her, prone and shocked, brought her right back to reality and she balked, blush evident as she helped him up and tried not to bring attention to the fact that the thought of losing him angered her so much. He’d turned to her after that, all malice drained away and replaced with a knowing smile and thanked her for the pep talk. Gave her that nickname the one that made her shiver - _Lola_. He was a shameless flirt after that.

She didn’t mind.

“We still talking about the primarch’s son?” He smiles at her again, that smile that makes his eyes crinkle, the scar against his cheekbone stretching with tanned skin. The same smile that makes her heart shutter in her chest.

“Don’t worry, Lola. I’m not going anywhere.”

She wants to beckon him closer. To wrap her arms around him until she believes those words. Instead, she smirks and shakes her head.

“You better not, Vega.” She knocks his shoulder with her own as she makes her way over to Cortez. “Who would flirt with me if not you?”

His chuckle is rich and contagious and sets her cheeks aflame. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t mention that last bit.

* * *

Charlie Shepard would always do the right thing, even if that thing would leave a gaping hole in her chest. This mission was no different. In fact, it was more important since the alliance between Turians and Krogan hung in the balance.

But some sacrifices hurt more than others.

And this one cut deeper than she anticipated.

She’d lost Mordin.

Just...watched him go, unable to do anything to stop him. Not like she could, stubborn damn Salarian. _Had to be me,_ his last words haunt her nightmares, _someone else might’ve gotten it wrong._ Because of him, the Krogans had hope again. Because of him, she was down a friend.

The pale blue liquor in her glass stares back at her now and she does the best to ignore the way the room spins. Maybe it’s the core drive? Maybe it’s just her. She’s hesitant to confirm which - knows it’ll be the later.

 _Might run tests on seashells._ Mordin whispers, his incessant humming buzzing in her brain. Behind him, Thane smiles, joined by Grunt...the blood from the rachnni still painting his scales. His face morphs, suddenly resembling the newest Turian aboard her ship and the primarch’s words echo in her head. _My son died with the respect of his men_. Would she be able to say the same at the end of this war?

Another shot burns down her throat, chasing their faces away.

She turns from the bar before any more ghosts can show up to torment her.

The hull of the ship creaks, her stumbling feet seeking purchase despite Joker’s smooth flying. She opens her mouth to chastise him but instead has to grip the back of the coach with all her might just to stay upright.

The door whooshes open then, a familiar face stepping inside and Charlie smiles. She isn’t sure whether he’s real or he’s another figment of her imagination but she really doesn’t care. She just wants to be held.

“Vega.” She says, hands reaching out for him. He’s shocked but catches her none the less, the full force of her weight sliding against his broad chest. He’s not used to his CO being this touchy. Or inebriated. 

“Hey, Lola. What’re you doing in...” His eyes flick over her shoulders, spying the empty bottle beside the glasses. Realization dawns on his handsome face, and he looks to her again. “...here. Hey,” His voice is softer now, she notes. “You ok?”

She doesn’t quite know the answer to that particular question. Doesn’t know if she _wants_ to know, but she nods in spite of it all.

“Fine.” She sniffs, pushing against the planes of his chest and righting herself as if everything was normal. Blurry eyes adjusting in the light, she casts them down to her fingers against the white of his shirt. A few flexes against the muscles there, her tongue poking out of her lips just slightly. James clears his throat. She yanks her hands away. “Why wouldn’t I be, L-T?” She flinches, Kaidan’s face flashing in her cloudy vision. She shakes her head - perhaps too violently - then lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. With a nod, she bids her fellow soldier adieu. “James.”

“Hey,” calloused fingers envelop her own, squeezing down enough to halt her retreat. He’s gentle as he tugs her closer again, hands enveloping her shoulders. She hadn't realized how much taller he was than her until this moment, her neck craning to look to his face. “You know you can talk to me, right? I...I know what it’s like to lose someone.” His tormented gaze echos her own and something inside of her breaks.

Commander Charlie Shepard is tough. She does _not_ cry. She does not think of the ‘what-if’s’. She remembers the lost, and looks to the tomorrow that those lost have insured will come. So then why is she burying her face into her lieutenant's chest eyelashes batting against the impending dampness?

“Uh, Lola?” James asks, arms cast wide - afraid that if he touches her ~~this fantasy will end~~ she’ll hand him his ass on a platter.

“Shut up.” She says, voice muffled by the muscle she’s currently nuzzling against. Her fingers dig into his flanks, noting how his breath hitches - _ticklish?_ He smells like the shuttle bay - grease and the ash of a used heat sink along with a slight twinge of sweat. She gasps wetly, turning her face so that her cheek brushes his chest. He inhales sharply - his shirt too thin for this to be appropriate. “Just-” Her smaller hands wrap around his wrists, hauling thick arms around her until he’s loosely hugging his smaller Commander.

The hum of the drive core is all that can be heard in the small cabin for a moment, then the brush of cloth as she presses ever tighter to Vega’s form. He tenses. “Shepard...” He tries, hands hovering for a moment before she tugs them to her once more, harder this time.

“Just shut up and hold me, Vega.” There’s a slur to her speech, and Vega is 90% sure she’s drooling on him. A low rumble starts in his chest, the beginnings of laughter. She looks to him, ready to chastise with her brows pulled tight over bleary eyes. But his smile is too much, too blinding to stay mad. He drops his forehead to her own, his minty breath mixing with the liquor stained breath of Shepard.

“That all you after, Lola?” She snorts, pulling back in his arms just enough to grant him her signature smirk and a cocked brow. His heart patters in his chest. She pats him once, twice then pulls away completely before her hand can reach out and trace the shape of his crooked nose like she so desperately wanted to. To trace the shape of his lips, and the dip in them that the scar leaves. What would he taste like, she wonders?

“You see straight through me, Vega. Now,” There’s a sharp pop as Shepard cranes her head from side to side, tension melting out of her form before she’s jamming a thumb over to the poker table in the corner. “You down for a game?”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” 

The interface flickers to life as they each take a seat, opposite each other. Blue light illuminating sharp cheekbones and scars as the computer deals them each a hand, stacks of credits to their sides. James cracks a joke about Shepard gambling in her current condition. Several minutes and several credits later, he regrets his teasing.

“So,” Shepard breaks the silence as they flick through the available games. “What was her name?” James flinches, questions written all over his face. “The one who broke your heart.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Commander.” He sighs, shoulders sagging with a weight he’d learned to carry oh so well. With a flick of his hand, the interface powers down, leaving them with no barriers as he digs up the past. “It wasn’t just her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fel Prime.” He supplies. “It was all of them. Because of a decision I made...and April.” James’ voice fails him for a moment, lids blinking back tears that he refuses to let fall. “I promised her I would protect them. She died crying ‘where’s James?’ And her mom had to _lie_. ‘He’ll be here...he’ll be here. Well, guess what, Commander? I wasn’t.”

Silence settles over the observation cabin once more, this silence far more choking than the last.

“She meant a lot to you.” Shepard gathers, heart beating in her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“No one should die like that. Especially not a kid.”

 _Oh,_ her heart hammers. _That’s not what I was expecting._ Judging by the way Vega chuckles, shaking his head, he knows exactly where he mind had gone.

“She wasn’t mine.” He clarifies, large hands dragging over his face. “Just a kid on that colony I was tellin’ you about. The one I couldn’t save.” He flicks his omni-tool open, a picture of a gapped tooth blonde child beaming to life. Her smile is wide, blue eyes the same as she holds a patch in her hands. “She wanted to be part of the Alliance so badly.” His smile turns sour, the picture fading away. “My little lookout.”

“You must miss her.”

“She never should’ve been a part of this. Damn collectors had no business dragging her or her colony into this stupid war.”

“They had no business dragging any of us into this war.” Her hand drapes over his across the table, pulling his eyes to his CO. She’s beautiful, he notices - not that he hasn’t before, of course, but at this moment it hits him harder than before. Shepard isn’t like a lot of women in The Alliance. She’s short but makes up for her height with strength and a temper unrivaled by even Wrex himself. Rippling muscle and soft curves built into one tiny body. A tattoo or two under her hoodie that he so desperately wishes to see more of. Her usual braid has fallen loose from her inebriated, tugging fingers - brown whisps falling into her face and tickling full lashes that frame ocean blue eyes. Thick, beckoning lips forming words he realizes he isn't listening to and thank god he tunes in just in time to hear “She would be proud of you.” He smiles at that, clearing his throat before awkwardly pulling his hand away.

“Yeah? I bet her and Mordin are looking down at both of our sorry drunk asses, sayin’ ‘that idiot’s mine’.”

“I’ve got too many people ‘lookin’ down on me’, Lieutenant.” There, her fingers wind in the braid that’s barely hanging on as it is. So much tension in one, tiny woman and, _Dios_ , he so desperately wants to hold her again.

But that would be breaking regulations. So he stays put, lamely offering up a platitude of ‘they’re in a better place now’. He’s thankfully she only snorts, tugging her hair the rest of the way from her braid before she stands and offers him a hand.

“Yeah, well, as long as I don’t have to worry about you running off to join them any time soon?” It’s phrased as a question, but he can see straight past her bluff. Straight into the very fear she’s trying to hide so deep in those endless, blue eyes. She’s afraid to lose him, afraid that he’ll be gone - just another senseless casualty of war - before she can really tell him how she feels.

“Hey, it’s ok.” He soothes, rough palm coming up to cup her smooth cheek. He feels the dips where Dr. Chawkwas’s implants hide her scars, feels the heat radiate from them and her lashes fluttering against the pad of his thumb. “My place is right here.”

“Here...like the Normandy?” She crowds his space, yet his hand doesn’t fall away. “Or here...with me?”

James Vega is rarely ever stumped, but at this moment all he can do is draw brows together and flap his mouth open and shut like a fish until Charlie puts him out of his misery, lithe index finger draping over his lips. She lets it drift over the scar there, eyes following its’ path.

“You don’t have to answer that.” She rushes - heat coloring her pale cheeks. He sweeps his fingers over that delicious blush once more, then drops his hand before he can do something he regrets. Still, he takes her hands in his and smiles - repeating what he said to her in the shuttle before - and _meaning_ it this time.

“Don’t worry, Lola. I’m not going anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> _More James Vega x Charlie Shepard to come._


End file.
